LUIS Homar plays Harry Caine, a blind scriptwriter with a past that unfolds before us, revealing a previous identity as a film director whose final work, never finished, led him into a chain of events that changed his life forever. Also starring Penelope Cruz. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold from Tuesday toThursday.

STAR RATING: ***

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (PG)

ROBERT Zemeckis’s technologically groundbreaking adaptation of Charles Dickens’s festive novella is a delightful early Christmas present. His team drag the timeless fable kicking and screaming into the 21st century using state-of-the-art motion capture technology. Jim Carrey leads an all-star cast playing not only curmudgeonly Ebenezer but also bringing to life the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas Yet To Come. But the technology never obscures the heartfelt emotion of the novella, including some heartbreaking scenes.

STAR RATING: ***

DORIAN GRAY (15)

THE corruptive power of celebrity casts a long, dark shadow over Victorian London in Oliver Parker’s take on Oscar Wilde’s gothic horror. The set and costume designs are impressive, much more so than Ben Barnes – whose portrayal of the beautiful titular lead is more wooden than the frame of his infamous portrait. His lifelessness is thrown into greater relief by Colin Firth’s eye-catching performance as his corrupter. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold from Friday to Monday.

STAR RATING: ***

FANTASTIC MR FOX (PG

HIP indie director Wes Anderson brings his offbeat and distinctly adult sensibilities to bear on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story, with lead voices from George Clooney and Meryl Streep. He imprints his personality so indelibly on the script that it’s hard to see children enjoying the film. The stop-motion animation is visually impressive, but Fantastic Mr Fox is a film you admire and marvel at rather than unreservedly love.

STAR RATING: ***

HARRY BROWN (18)

SIR Michael Caine delivers one of his finest performances for years in the accomplished debut by British director Daniel Barber. He plays a vigilante pensioner in a role thematically reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s harrowing thriller Gran Torino, hunting down a gang of council-estate thugs who killed his best friend. The 76-year-old is fearless and mesmerising as a war veteran with nothing to lose.

STAR RATING: ***

JENNIFER’S BODY (15)

SCREENWRITER Diablo Cody follows the deserved Oscar triumph of Juno with a horror comedy about a high-school hottie (Megan Fox) who develops a bloodthirsty taste for teenage boys. Jennifer’s Body is a distinctly off-kilter teen horror that doesn’t quite find its rhythm. Fox confidently graduates from her eye-candy roles in the Transformers films to leading lady, but has wild-eyed competition from co-star Amanda Seyfried.

STAR RATING: ***

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (15)

GEORGE Clooney adds to his ever-expanding repertoire of hilarious misfits in The Men Who Stare At Goats, a deranged tale of US servicemen who are trained to become Jedi warriors, capable of killing the enemy with mind-power alone. Ewan McGregor co-stars as the reporter in war-torn Iraq who gets sucked into the escalating madness, culminating in a memorable LSD trip in the desert.

STAR RATING: ***

9 (12A)

EXPANDED from his 11-minute, Oscar-nominated 2005 short film, Shane Acker’s 9 is a computer-animated odyssey set on a post-apocalyptic Earth devoid of humans. The protagonists are a race of tiny, man-made sack people, voiced by Hollywood stars including Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer and Jennifer Connelly, who seek to sow the seeds of a new humanity. Sadly, it is a triumph of dark visuals over plot and substance.

STAR RATING: ***

SAW VI (18)

THERE’S lots of blood and no glory as Kevin Greutert, who edited the previous five films in the Saw horror franchise, directs the latest instalment of the series. Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) lives to slay another day – from beyond the grave – as Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) orchestrates one last horrific game of survival.

STAR RATING: **

2012 (12A)

HAVING previously destroyed all the major cities in an alien invasion (Independence Day) and plunged the globe back into the Ice Age (The Day After Tomorrow), director Roland Emmerich goes one better in 2012 by trying to wipe out the entire human race. John Cusack stars in the jaw-dropping, special-effects frenzy based on the premise that Earth will come to a dramatic end on December 21, 2012, as decreed by the Mayan calendar.

STAR RATING: ***

UP (U)

THE latest computer-animated masterpiece from the wizards at Pixar is an airborne adventure in the company of a cranky old man and an excitable young boy. Both hysterical and heartbreaking, this rumbustious romp – the Disney studio’s first release in Digital 3D – is guaranteed to have even the most cynical soul choking back tears long after the lights go up. The opening 10 minutes of Up are among the finest Pixar has ever crafted.

STAR RATING: ****

ZOMBIELAND (15)

A BLOODY jaunt through a futuristic America ravaged by a contagion that has metamorphosed all but the lucky few into flesh-chomping predators.